Porto Ercole

I had the idea of going through this blog and drawing attention to a few most memorable posts for the final chapter, but I shan’t. It’s the totality that matters. Every single sentence, image, sensation has had equal merit. This has been my first blog and this it will remain for all times.

My next one, which is here, has a different theme. It is even more like a book. Perhaps it shows the direction to take. As if I hadn’t known before.

Thank you, WordPress community and visitors from beyond, for every single little visit, like and comment. Another door has opened. No reason why we wouldn’t continue.

One CAN get overdoored. It happened to me in the last four days.

Doors were attacking me left and right. When sorting the photos I got so overwhelmed that I almost missed the deadline for this week’s Norm’s Thursday Doors. Here is just a teaser: one door from every place that we visited.

We started out with a day in Rome: here the Embassy of Slovenia in Vatican.

The next day it was Pitigliano first.

Then it was a hike to (the wrong) one of the Via Cave where a door was the last thing I expected.

And we ended in Sovana not on foot as intended.

Day three, the monastery at Monte Argentario

Porto Santo Stefano

Porto Ercole

Orbetello

The WWF Oasis Lake Burano headquarters

Capalbio

The last day started with Civitella Maritima.

It continued with Siena with its magnificent cathedral. Wonderful visitors minded bestia for me throughout. Thank you!

Since I’ve only taken two panoramas in my life, I call my sister to the rescue. She has at least three, and they rock. I’m not sure if they are supposed to be so… tiny. Anyway, Sylvain wants them for his challenge and here they are. First both of mine:

Norm’s Thursday Doors photo challenge is one year old. My blog will be two in under a week. Celebrations are in order.

I thought it would be good for the occasion to have a look at what kind of doors I published in the first year of my blog before landing the perfect challenge for me.

The first time I participated was on May 1 with the typical title Thursday Doors on a Friday, wondering if this was allowed, but it took me a month to grow into a regular. Since then I think I only missed one Thursday, early on, it just flew by too fast. Door-spotting has become a family sport and a source of joy. Thank you for that, Norm, and to every contributor for making it fun.

The following photos have all already been published before I found Thursday Doors. I am too lazy to edit them up a bit and upload them once again with the watermark. They will have to do as they are.

Porto Ercole

Scarlino

Metelkova City, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Metelkova City, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Metelkova City, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Metelkova City, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Metelkova City, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Local invitation.

Scansano

Padna, Slovenia

Pitigliano

Pitigliano

“I’m by your side, however you decide.” Lucca

Future Double Helix Runaway’s room. Lucca

“I’m telling you the truth!” Lucca

Just a little confession. Lucca

Roma

Ex-casa

Casa, sweet casa

Koper, Slovenia 🙂

Magliano

Photo: DS / Posing in Orbetello

And this is a recent revisit to my favourite local door used for the New Year’s Day edition of Thursday Doors. I had to take some new photos because they are in bloom. Let our Thursday Doors bloom on too!

Continuing the three-green-doors theme from last week. Italy must be sharing my favourite colour.

The first photo is terribly shot and cut, but at that time I was not taking photos of Thursday Doors yet, just of happy ones. It is a kindergarten in Porto Ercole and its happiness shines through.

The second door is green and not especially enlightening as such. Until you spot Giordano.

The third door was found in Roma’s Monteverde district too, just like Giordano’s, and was a case of “hold the dog, please, I wish to investigate that door over there”. Images here are lined up in reverse. Whereas the first image could make you believe all is well, sadly I saw the building in its entirety first.

Even though I don’t like to combine challenges, today calls for an exception. There is only so much doors one can post in a week, and we know it’s on Thursday for Norm. Cee is asking for windows too, so this is for both.

Over here, ooops moments are rich and varied. Let’s investigate a few.

First there is weird camera stuff: two images that the camera decided to take by itself right here from the desk, plus two that I think are called double exposure (hm… yes?). Or maybe it’s parallel universes? In any case, I like it.

Ooops can also be in the action itself: a flood in Terme Saturnia, followed by a hurricane in our back yard, followed by dry Fontana di Trevi under construction, followed by a lovely bookcase, just a bit high up (yes, ours!), followed by what amore calls “the Italian fantasy”, and last but not least, not really a welcome in Porto Ercole.

Here are a few animal ooopses: a sheep that lost its footing, the gecko that to me is in itself one big ooops, a sea (food) predator, and a mysterious cage of a dead parrot in Porto Santo Stefano.

The following happened when our olive tree called Olgo (because it’s male) got refreshed and we burnt the cut-off branches in our fireplace. Never put the wooden crate in an indoor situation on fire like that, in case you didn’t know. It BURNS. Consequence: the lovely green mirror you see above the mantel cracked from side to side. (It would anyway, crate or no crate, since the chimney behind it was so hot.)

There is a poem from my childhood. It describes a little girl walking and her mother telling her not to look left, not to look right, not to look up, not to look down. So the little girl closes her eyes. So the little girl falls. “Why did you fall, little girl?” I like to look no matter what they tell me. Down as well as up.

If I look down, there is a variety of things to see. We can hop from one to the other easily.

Let us count what all I see when I look down: This is in Il giardino dei tarocchi

Most usually it’s bestia, no doubt about that.

From bestia to flowers. In Piran.

From flowers to me.

And back to flowers.

From flowers to clover.

Staying green: when mould starts to cover everything. Early November in southern Tuscany

When the ground dries out. On top of Ljubljana Castle in August.

Eye-catching pattern. In Porto Ercole, I think.

The sea! I see it from closer up a lot too but without the camera. In Piran.

Leaf shadows in Bomarzo’s Monster Garden.

Stuff. Capalbio beach in the winter.

Happy feet on sand.

Happy feet on grass.

Happy feet and love stones and home-made bread.

The witch and the shells (Can hear her already: “Why am I the witch again?”)

So that it’s the wizard too. New pavement in Ljubljana’s Slovenska street.

One of the most impressive impressions from my first visit of Roma needs a separate gallery – various floors:

In St. Peter’s

In Pantheon

In the Vatican Museum

And when I’m looked at and for like that, I don’t mind being the one who is beneath one’s feet either.

Just last week mom held her first Hitchhiker book, read a bit and proclaimed: “This man is crazy!”

Today is the Towel Day, dedicated to Douglas Adams and his Guide. It makes so much sense that there is really nothing one can say to oppose it: If you carry a towel, chances are great that you have all the rest with you too. (And I’m not googling the matching original part from the book on purpose because writing from memory is fun.)

However, lest we forget and there are less and less of those who choose to remember, today is also – and has been for longer – the Day of Youth, one of the biggest holidays in ex-Yugoslavia, Tito’s birthday (not really, it was just celebrated then).

It was on this day one year ago that I settled on the Volkswagen-looking sign (above left), chose my profile photo and published my first blog piece ever.

It is not an easy piece but it’s quite symbolic. Not symbolic of my blog, which I do my best to keep upbeat, but of my original country. It concerns a certain escaped lynx and what happened to her. As for me, I’m still roaming wild.

These are four of my favourite photos that have not been published yet. This one is Flying Carpet, in Monticiano.

It is rather strange to be me and have a blog. I don’t feel like advertising. I don’t strive to make myself seen. I joined Facebook a mere month or so ago for the first time and now at least my posts are published there as well.

It’s rather like when I was travelling in Greece, around the Peloponnesus and several islands. In more touristy places the restaurant owners were loud and obnoxious, it’s true. They were also quite slick. I remember one of them, standing at the entrance to his restaurant. His game was trying to determine the origin of each group of tourists before they reached his place, and then barely audibly uttering a name of a sportsman from this country. In our case it was Jure Zdovc (basketball player), perfectly pronounced. And this is how he got us to chew on his mediocre calamari.

When she asked us whether we wished any dessert, all of us started to plead incapable of swallowing anything more. She smiled and already turned to leave but then turned her head a little and whispered almost audibly: “We’ve got strawberries.” Guess what followed.

I took this approach at the time when I was selling my mom’s book of poems for children at a fair. The fair was full of toys and this was what most of the kids were interested in. I could see how they looked away as soon as they saw books. And yet, the stall next to me was occupied by a highly successful, cute and productive book seller who put a child or two in her lap and her first question was: “Do you like to create?”, while her aid, dressed as Noddy (hugely popular cartoon and book character), took care of attention-drawing.

I stood there, with one single book on the stall, looking at all the passing children and thinking things over. Then I started to whisper at the passing parents: “We’ve got poems!” At least three fathers bought the book.

And it is not because the book was somehow not worthy. It is one glorious book, if I say so myself, and my plan is to translate it one day and see what the world thinks. Because in Slovenia people love it, children love to learn the poems by heart and colour in the illustrations (provided by Mina Fina) which have been left in black and white for this purpose.

Looky here, in Orvieto

The point is that I prefer the tactics of the restaurant owner on the island of Karpathos, just to the right of Crete, where I had dinner every night for one week years ago. The most memorable meal consisted of a calamaro – yes, in the singular – because one specimen was so huge that it covered the entire plate.

Nobody stood at the entrance there, they were too busy serving. The guests were not tourists but rather locals, and the permeating emotion was that of quiet pride: “Nobody is forcing you to eat here but when you do, you will be served excellent food and you will want to return.”

In this way I have been quietly waiting for a year to see what will happen, but also not really waiting since I put here stuff that I wish to see myself. To have it at a ready.

A few times it happened that a single piece gathered much more attention than normally: one time it was a poem by a Slovenian politician that did it, another time a writing site decided to use my entry with a poem by Tomaž Šalamun as a teaching aid and I still have people flocking over on account of it. Thank you, Tomaž, for writing it.